Without delving too deeply into the plot (as to do that would definitely
require spoilers), the movie begins in the 1930s with a scientist,
Randolph Kaminsky, being shot by an unseen assassin. As he dies, his
last breath is captured in a bottle and put in a box. We then follow the
box as it changes hands over the years, usually due to the last owner
violently dying or being robbed, until it ends up in the store of Susan
Jordan where it sits on a shelf waiting to be auctioned off.